Note: This article was originally published in The Technology Source (http://ts.mivu.org/) as: Zane L. Berge and Greg Kearsley "The Sustainability of Distance Training:
Follow-up to Case Studies" The Technology Source, November/December 2003. Available online at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1034. The article is reprinted here with permission of the publisher.

Sustaining distance training within a professional organization is critical to building employee competency. An organization must create a solid link between its training function and its business or strategic planning goals to sustain a high-quality, cost-effective distance training program.

We define distance training or e-learning (within this article, we use the terms
synonymously) as the use of a computer or other electronic information and
communication technologiessuch as videoconferencing, e-mail, telephone,
interactive television, and the liketo provide training or educational programs.
While many authors (e.g., Horton, 2000; Rosenberg, 2000) have defined the benefits
of distance training, few have explained why it is important to sustain these
programs. Certainly a primary factor is to foster innovation, but innovation
cannot be regarded as an end in itself. Rather, distance training presents real
economic opportunities to increase performance, maximize profitability, improve
market share, reduce risks and liabilities, and enhance the corporate image and
its public recognition.

It is clear that
establishing a distance training program requires a tremendous amount of time
and effort. Because it is innovative and often demands a culture change within
the organization for success, there must be significant business reasons for
creating and sustaining such a program. If not sustained, the investment is lost and the
organization will not achieve the intended improvements, which could
determine the long-term survival or financial health of the organization. The
question therefore arises: What factors have a positive or negative impact on
the continuous development of distance training programs?

In this article, we share the results of a recent distance training survey administered
to representatives of a range of professional organizations. These results are not intended
to provide a complete picture of the field, but they constitute a selective cross-section
whereby certain trends related to distance training and its continued development may be
isolated for discussion and proposed for future investigation.

The Survey

The survey was a follow-up to two published collections of case studies (Schreiber &
Berge, 1998; Berge, 2001). The cases (15 in the first book and 16 in the second, respectively)
were from corporate, nonprofit, and government organizations such as the American Red Cross,
the Federal Aviation Administration, First Union, Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot, the Internal
Revenue Service, MCI, UAW-DaimlerChrysler, Unisys, and the United States Postal Service.
Out of the original 31 case studies, the authors of 17 responded to the survey.

In the survey, we asked the following questions:

How has the nature of e-learning in the organization changed?

Are you still involved in e-learning and what is your current role?

What are the biggest obstacles or issues associated with sustaining e-learning
in your organization at present, and in the past if different?

When you wrote your case study, at which stage of distance learning would you
categorize your organization?

The concept of "stages of maturity," as referred to in questions D and E,
was defined in both Schreiber & Berge (1998) and Berge (2001). Stage
descriptions were provided with the survey questions, and they are repeated in the discussion below.

Results and Discussion

This section summarizes and interprets the responses we received (see
Exhibit 1 for the verbatim responses).

A. How has the nature of e-learning in the organization changed?

Most respondents indicated that they are more involved with e-learning,
but from different sources and in different ways. The participants have
increased the extent of their distance training offerings, but vendors or
different parts of the organization are developing and/or delivering more of the
material than in the past. The respondents noted that new
applications, particularly multimedia (e.g., streaming video) and Web-based
training, have replaced previous uses of television or video-based learning. Also,
more organizations are using "blended" training that involves a mix of online
and in-person classroom instruction.

B. Are you still involved in e-learning and what is your current role?

All but one of the respondents indicated that they were still
involved in e-learning in some manner. Some have changed their roles
significantly (e.g., managing instead of developing or training), and others have
changed organizations. (This trend was apparent in the group of non-respondents
as well. When solicited for participation in the survey, half indicated that
they had changed jobs, had changed organizations, or were otherwise no longer
involved with the business unit whose case study they contributed to the two
books.) One major problem we observed is that the frequent departure or reassignment of e-learning "champions" can adversely affect the continued development of e-learning in an organization. This is particularly true when the distance training has not been fully institutionalized (i.e., is driven from the bottom up) and hence is very susceptible to personnel turbulence. Further research is needed to explain to what extent stability and consistency of personnel contribute to the sustainability of distance education within an organization.

C. What are the biggest obstacles or issues associated with sustaining
e-learning in your organization at present, and in the past if different?

We received a wide variety of responses to this question,
indicating that the obstacles and issues are extensive. Obstacles include:

time and costs associated with the development of e-learning;

demonstrating return on investment for e-learning;

formalizing the processes associated with e-learning;

keeping up with rapid changes in technology;

finding and retaining e-learning staff;

identifying what training needs can best be met by e-learning;

creating and maintaining interest in e-learning;

providing the technical support needed;

misconceptions about e-learning that result in underuse or overuse;

budget and/or resource limitations;

inadequate bandwidth for complex applications;

need for instructor acceptance of e-learning;

getting employees to make time for e-learning;

too much time spent on developing the technology and not enough on the instruction; and

lack of consistent direction, support, or involvement from management or senior management.

D. When you wrote your case study, at which stage of
distance learning would you categorize your organization?

This question and the next refer to a four-stage model of
technological maturity as outlined in Schreiber and Berge (1998) and described
here:

Stage 1: The organization supports sporadic distance learning events.

Stage 2: The organization has sufficient technological capability to support
distance learning events. When these events occur, they are replicated through
an interdisciplinary team that responds to different staff/management
inquiries and recommendations about distance learning.

Stage 3: The organization has established a distance learning policy, such that a stable
and predictable process is in place to facilitate the identification and
selection of technology to deliver distance training.

Stage 4: Distance learning has been institutionalized in the organization. Distance
learning policy, communication, and practice are all aligned in such a way that
business objectives are being addressed. The organization has established a
distance learning identity, and it conducts systematic assessment of distance
training events within an organizational perspective.

The majority of respondents (10) indicated that their organizations were in Stage 1
when their case studies were originally written. The other respondents judged their
organizations to be in Stage 2 (2), Stage 3 (4), or Stage 4 (1).

E. At what stage would you categorize your organization now?

Of those who still work for the same organization, a few (4) placed their organizations
in Stage 2, or between Stages 2 and 3. One person placed his/her organization in Stage 1, and
one person said that different parts of his/her organization were in different stages. Most
respondents (8), however, believe that their organizations are in Stage 3 or 4, or somewhere
in between. It is clear that over the past few years, the organizations represented by the
respondents have moved toward the institutionalization of distance education.

We hypothesized that there would be a positive relationship between the stage of
organizational maturity and the amount of top-down leadership exhibited within
the organization. However, the respondents indicated that most leadership for distance
learning is either bottom-up (7) or from both directions (7). Only 2 respondents indicated
that leadership was primarily top-down; one respondent did not provide an
answer. Based on this feedback, it seems that it is more common for distance learning to be
driven by the training or business units than by senior management.

G. Other comments?

The respondents identified several perceptions and
factors that they believe are critical to sustaining distance training. They also
noted that success may depend on the organizational culture and the trust
in technology within a particular organization.

Conclusions

It may be that distance education has grown
more slowly than predicted over the past decade because it has not been
sustained in many organizationsthat is, it keeps getting "reintroduced."
While it is not possible to reach any definitive
conclusions based on the limited qualitative data provided by our survey,
the results do suggest some insights about the evolution and sustainability of
distance training.

Since 1998,
e-learning has noticeably grown in most of the organizations studiedas measured by stages
of organizational maturity in distance educationand has developed into a
broader base of applications. However, respondents report that their organizations
are still confronting a variety of obstacles and issues associated with e-learning,
which suggests that even
after distance training has been successfully implemented, sustaining it remains
a struggle.

Sustaining a process new to the enterprise, such as distance training and education,
calls for a systematic approach to change that challenges deeply-held assumptions within
the organization and that is also sensitive to fundamental shifts in customers' expectations,
mindsets, and behaviors. Being systematic means generating an innovation roadmap that will
include budgeting or funding support, infrastructure, communication, human development, and
policies and procedures (Berge, 2001). It means being entrepreneurial and not just gambling
with a creative idea.

The survey demonstrated that there is much to be learned about how distance training
evolves over time and as organizations and technology change. Particularly interesting questions
for further investigation include the following: What roles might emerging technology, increasing
resource support, and support from various levels of leadership play in the development
of such programs? What impact do mergers and reorganizations have on sustaining
e-learning within an organization? Is
distance training more sustainable when implemented from the top-down versus
bottom-up? Finally, how does the philosophy of education/learning in an
organization affect the development of distance training? Such factors merit
closer attention if we are to discover how successful distance learning programs can
be sustained within educational and professional organizations.